The Coors Western Art show carries on
By Kristin Hoerth
Graceful Silence by David Griffin.
For lovers of western art who live in Denver, like me, the annual Coors Western Art Exhibit & Sale is a hometown treasure. It’s held every year in January as part of the National Western Stock Show. So when the stock show was canceled due to the pandemic, the fate of this year’s Coors show was up in the air. Fortunately, like many others around the West, the organizers were able to turn the annual gathering into a successful online enterprise. “It was an amazing surprise to see so many patrons come out to support us in such a strange and crazy year,” said curator Rose Fredrick.
The show’s success is certainly due, in large part, to the impressive artworks contributed by the 69 participating artists. To recognize their accomplishments, several awards were presented during a virtual celebration in early January. I was happy to select the painting GRACEFUL SILENCE by Texas artist David Griffin for the Southwest Art Magazine Award. The Western Art & Architecture Magazine Award went to Dianne Massey Dunbar for her painting RAIN ON WINDSHIELD: OPEN. The Coors Show Advisory Committee’s Centennial Award—which is new this year, and which honors an artist who has taken risks with their work, expanded their horizons, or changed and evolved their work over the past year—went to Maeve Eichelberger for her three-dimensional, mixed-media piece HOLLYHOCK. The Artists’ Choice Award went to Dan Sprick for his painting CHRIST AND THE DEVIL.
Hitching Post by Foster Grissim.
Finally, the Best of Show award went to Foster Grissim for HITCHING POST, a 30-by-36-inch oil painting. The award was chosen by Lewis Sharp, former longtime director of the Denver Art Museum, who had this to say about Grissim: “He is able to articulate, and then to realize in his painting, the simple development of his subjects through abstract figures. Whether it’s a simple cow or a complicated corral of monotonal cattle, they are all very beautifully painted and very compelling. I was moved and touched by the quality of the work that Foster has accomplished in his relatively short and young career.” High praise indeed, and very well deserved.
This Editor’s Letter appeared in the March/April 2021 issue of Southwest Art magazine.